Adriana S. Kosovych, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s New York office, was quoted in SHRM, in “Pay Attention to Prohibition on Comp Time for Nonexempt Workers in Private Sector,” by Allen Smith.
Following is an excerpt:
Comp time is allowed in the public sector, but private-sector employers are prohibited from offering future paid time off to nonexempt employees in lieu of complying with the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). …
'Comp Time' Loosely Defined
Sometimes employers refer to "comp time" to loosely refer to when a nonexempt employee works extra hours early in the workweek and then the employer lets the worker go home the same number of hours later in the workweek to avoid incurring overtime. That is generally allowed, noted Adriana Kosovych, an attorney with Epstein Becker Green in New York City.
"This is not true comp time as we normally think of it, because allowing the employee to move working hours around within a workweek is not the same as actually working hours beyond the overtime threshold, receiving no premium pay for that time and then taking time off in a different workweek to account for the overtime premium," she said.
